


Finally Warm

by CarbieDraws



Category: GTARP, Grand Theft Auto V, NoPixel
Genre: Angst, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Arson, Child Abuse, Dissociation, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 11:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20656676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarbieDraws/pseuds/CarbieDraws
Summary: For all accounts, Tessa Lamb was a normal child. A normal child whose only family was a boarder collie named Maisy. A dog who was the only thing keeping her fragile stability from crumbling down into a pile of ash.But Maisy wasn't going to be there forever.





	Finally Warm

For all accounts, Tessa Lamb was a normal child.

She was a soft, caring young girl who loved all animals, constantly looking after the classroom pets at school, petting any dog or cat she saw, and just generally taking a shine to any animal she could find. It may have made her a bit of an outcast, but she didn’t mind that. She preferred the company of animals, all things considered. They didn’t make fun of her for spending time with them, at least.

It was, in a way, a get away. From the stress of everything. At just six years old, Tessa wasn’t prepared for the harsh realities the world had to offer. She was exposed to it too soon, and it only made her want to hide away more.

Maybe that’s why she latched onto Maisy so much.

The boarder collie had been there ever since she was born, growing with her and looking after her, even when her parents weren’t. Tessa was always comforted when she buried her head in the dog’s soft fur, blocking out the sounds of her parents arguing in the background, until it was just muffled white noise. Maisy never complained.

Maisy didn’t yell at her. She didn’t hit her, or ignore her, or just generally dislike her. No, Maisy cared about her. Maybe she was the only one who truly did. It’s not like Tessa knew any different.

She didn’t know what she would do without Maisy. The boarder collie was there to protect her when no one else would, even if it just made her parents mad. Sometimes she’d even growl at them for getting close to Tessa, and every time would Maisy would be chained up in the backyard. On those nights Tessa had always grabbed her sleeping bag, no matter how cold, and curled up outside next to her. If she had to stay out there, then Tessa wasn’t going to leave her alone. It was the least she could do to repay her.

Maybe things would have been different if someone had noticed. If someone had cared to realize that the shy little girl in kindergarten only really connected with animals, and maybe if they had realized that this was a sign of something much darker running much deeper, things wouldn’t have gotten so terrible. Maybe if they had bothered to realize that the bruises Tessa had weren’t just roughhousing, that she wasn’t just clumsy, and not really caring for her own safety, maybe it would have been alright in the end.

It’s a lot of maybe’s, but there were so many times when if someone had cared, things might have gotten better.

Instead, only the animals cared.

Only Maisy cared.

And then Maisy became tired.

She stopped running around as much, stopped playing games, ate more, and was growing bigger by the day.

Tessa was sure the one light in her life was going to be extinguished.

She cried to her parents, begging that they would listen to her and bring her to the vet. They didn’t listen. She asked again and again, not caring what it got her, but they didn’t seem to care.

She didn’t know why she thought they would. They had never cared before, why would they now?

Still, in the mind of a six year old, when the one thing keeping you grounded was in danger, you were going to fight like your life depended on it. Because Tessa, she didn’t care about her own safety in those moments. She wanted to fight for Maisy just like Maisy did for her.

It didn’t work, but at least she tried. And those nights when all she felt was broken and bruised, Maisy was there to lick her, and tell her that it was okay. Even though Maisy was tired, she still spared what she could for her charge. It was in those moment Tessa knew that Maisy was more human than anyone else. How people couldn’t see that animals were just as thinking, feeling, loving as anyone else was beyond her. Those who hurt them just couldn’t understand.

It eventually all came to a head on a cold winter night.

“It’ll be okay, Maisy,” Tessa whispered, petting the dog’s coat. She was shaking, the cold getting through her fur already. Their parents had locked her outside, wanting time to themselves. Tessa knew she needed to make herself scarce, and she wasn’t about to leave her dog alone, so she was sitting out there herself, only clad in a dress and a small jacket. It was getting cold as the night grew darker, but she had felt worse.

Maisy only whimpered a little in respond.

She didn’t know what was happening. Maisy seemed to be in pain, but she wasn’t doing anything. Tessa didn’t know what was happening to Maisy, but it seemed like all she could do was sit and wait, and hope that everything would be okay, because she didn’t know what else to do. She was only six years old. She didn’t know how to take care of a dog. She didn’t know what to do in this kind of situation.

She didn’t think Maisy expected her to, if she way she licked her palm was any indication, but she still felt lost.

It was only when, thirty minutes later, a new puppy came into existence that Tessa finally understood.

Maisy wasn’t hurt. She wasn’t going to leave her all alone and never come back, she wasn’t going to be hurt anymore. She was bringing new life into the world.

Tessa didn’t really understand it, but she knew that she needed help. More than anything else.

She pounded on the back door of the house, knowing that she had tried to get her parents to give in a million times and not once had it succeeded, but she told herself that it would be different this time. That now they’d see what was happening and they’d care.

“Stop banging on the door!” A voice came booming from the other side. “I don’t care.”

“Mom, Dad, Maisy is having puppies! Please, help,” her voice broke, desperate and pleading.

The door opened a smidge. Her mom’s head poked out, taking a look at the situation in the back yard. She looked haggard, like the weight of the world was on her shoulders and she just didn’t want to deal with anything anymore. She was almost skin and bones, in a way. Tessa had often imagined her akin to a skeleton, half way to the grave.

Her body was blocking the door so Tessa couldn’t go into the house if she tried, only letting a small peak through through her legs to see where her father was sitting on the couch, drinking. They were always drinking.

Tessa may not know a lot of things, but she knew that when they were drinking, it was never a good sign. The bottles meant bad things were going to happen. They meant more bruises, more harsh words thrown if she didn’t make herself scarce. But she couldn’t give up this time.

“Please, let Maisy in,” she pleaded.

Mom’s frown deepened. “She was pregnant? God, that’s what all your whining was for? Just leave her there, Tessa.”

“What?” Tessa’s voice broke. “She needs help!”

“We can’t afford more mouths to feed, Tessa. Better to just let them die out here.”

Tessa’s face dropped more, if that was even possible.

This was the reality of her life that she had to face.

No one cared. No one cared that the one thing that gave her protection was hurting. No one cared that she was hurting. The only one who cared was Maisy.

What was a six year old supposed to do?

After years and years of trauma, everything was finally starting to crack.

She hadn’t realized it, but she had put all of her hope, all of her stability, onto Maisy. She had deluded herself into believing that Maisy would always be there for her, and the reality that there was no getting out of this was shattering it.

She had stupidly held onto that tiny grasp of hope that everything would be okay. Surely her parents wouldn’t let this happen. Surely they’d have some spark of humanity left in them.

Tessa had seen it. She had seen the softness in her mother from time to time. She remembered when she used to since her that lullaby to sleep, brushing her hair softly away from her face. She remembered her father picking her up and swinging her around with his large arms, causing her to laugh as hard as she could.

She could remember it. She knew there was a spark of love in them.

But not anymore.

That spark was watered down by years of drinking, of ignoring their daughter for the bottom of a bottle. It was extinguished by the thousands of tiny cuts their words left on her, the bruises that were covered up poorly under long sleeve shirts and pants.

And Tessa, she couldn’t be bothered to care anymore.

Her parents didn’t love her. She knew that now.

Only Maisy loved her.

Only Maisy.

Tessa stayed outside for another hour. The temperature had dropped dramatically. Tessa was holding onto the five new puppies, curled up in her jacket. She was shivering from a lack of anything to keep her warm, but it didn’t matter.

Maisy was really cold. The puppies were really cold.

Tessa had given up pounding on the door. Her parents weren’t going to respond no matter what she did. Her mother had closed it after her awful comment.

Maisy’s breathing was shallow.

There wasn’t anything Tessa could do.

She ran a hand through Maisy’s cold fur. It was too dark to see her clearly, but Tessa could feel her move her head just slightly, curling into her hand one last time.

Tessa stared ahead at the door.

She wasn’t crying. Her eyes weren’t the slightest bit damp. She couldn’t bring herself to cry, to mourn the loss of the only one who loved her.

Slowly, Tessa stood up.

She needed to get warm.

She needed to be warm again.

She slowly walked over to the small window on the far side of the house. It was a ways up from the ground, too high for Tessa to reach on her own. A tree was positioned just right, however, allowing her a way up and into the house.

She never would have been able to get Maisy in this way. This was a route that was only meant for her.

It landed her right in the kitchen. From the corner of her eye she could see the locked door that she had been left staring at in the night. She didn’t know where the key was to unlock it, but it didn’t matter anymore.

She needed to get warm.

The glint of a lighter on the table caught her eye. It was the one her mother used to light her cigarettes, filling the air was smoke that smelled bad and tasted worse. She grabbed it, already knowing how to use it from the countless times she saw her mother doing it.

Slowly, she walked up the stairs, knowing the perfect places to step to not make any creaking noises on the old wood. She peaked in through the crack of the door into her parents’ bedroom. They were out cold, the drinking having taken it’s toll on them. She knew from experience that it would be hard to wake them up now.

Perfect.

She needed to get warm.

Her tiny fingers played against the trigger for the lighter, eventually getting it to light up. It was such a tiny flame. So little, so harmless. If she touched it she’d barely be burnt.

The ground beneath the bed was covered in carpet. Woven threads stuck together, right below the sheets. The wooden bed frame would be easy fodder.

To get warm.

There was a chair just outside the room. It would be so easy to push it up against the door. It wouldn’t be able to open, and they’d be stuck. Stuck inside the room just like they left Maisy stuck outside, in pain and suffering.

They’d know how it felt.

They’d know what it was like to feel a pain so bad it felt like your entire world was splitting apart, and there was nothing you could do. The ground beneath your feet crumbling until there was nothing left to stand on. They’d know the warmth.

Tessa knelt down. There was no hesitation as she held the flame to the rug.

It caught easily.

The fire slowly burned away the edge of the carpet, leaving an awful smell behind. Slowly, Tessa backed away. She closed the door, moving the chair with a loud scrap against the ground. They’d hear that for sure.

Tessa wanted them to know what was happening.

She wanted them to know what was going to happen and not have any way to stop it. They’d be trapped in a hell of their own making, and it was all their fault.

She moved away from the door, into her room. She closed the door behind her, not wanting to hear her parents if they started to beg and plead. She didn’t care.

There weren’t many things Tessa truly cared to keep. Her parents rarely bought her anything, and she didn’t see the need in having a lot of possessions.

Still, she grabbed the heart locket on the side of her bed. Inside, there was a picture of Maisy, sitting their with her tail raised, a goofy grin on her face. This was one of the last few presents she remembered getting from her parents before they truly stopped caring.

She took one final look at the room, memorizing her home for the past six years. If you could really call it a home. It felt more like a prison most of the time.

Tessa could feel the room getting warmer.

Her skin that was previously ice cold was getting more hot, chasing away the ache of the cold that had seeped into her bones. It was time to go.

Tessa grabbed onto the metal doorknob of her room, immediately pulling away as the heat seared into her hands.

No. She needed to get out. She couldn’t be trapped in here.

As quickly as she could, Tessa opened the door, not caring for the smell of burnt flesh coming from her hands. She could deal with the pain. It’s not like Maisy hadn’t dealt with any worse.

Down the hallway she could see the walls catching fire, closer and closer to her. She quickly jetted down the stairs, but not before the sound of screaming caught her ears.

It… sounded nice.

She paused for just a few seconds, listening to her parents scream. They were calling her name…

Did they actually care?

“TESSA HELP!”

No.

They didn’t care.

They just wanted to use her.

That’s all the ever wanted. They wanted her to do all the chores, to clean up their bottles after a binge, to take care of Maisy all on her own. They didn’t care if she was burning in a fire.

Tessa took methodical steps down the stairs, relishing in the screams.

She climbed back out the window she had gotten in through, sliding down the tree. She took a few steps back, looking up at the fire as it began to engulf the house. Her expression stayed blank.

In the distance she could hear sirens. The neighbors from nearby houses began to wake up, lights turning on.

Everything was a blur as the sight of red and blue and orange flooded her senses, shouting all around her getting louder and louder. People rushing into the house, pushing through the locked front door. It had all taken too much time.

Their house wasn’t well constructed. It was a mess of old building materials that were never updated and a general lack of maintenance, paired with a lackluster design. It was cheap, that was why Tessa’s parents bought it, but it was clearly biting them in the back now.

The house was beginning to creak, the old wood breaking, the supports of the house crumbling under the fire. The men who ran into the building were funneling out, and Tessa could see one of them holding a body, unmoving. The next one out was dragging a larger frame behind him, a gory sight to see.

They were dead. There was no mistaking it.

The fire had roared for too long with no escape.

She was finally warm.

What...

What had she done?

Tessa slowly looked down on her hands. They were charred, the skin burnt open and blood pooling around it, the sides deathly white. She couldn’t feel them at all.

These were the hands responsible for the death of her parents.

She thought she would feel free. She just needed to get warm. She just needed to show them and then she’d be fine again. Everything would go back to the way it should be. She’d be warm.

But Maisy was still dead. The collapsed house would have seen to that if the cold hadn’t. Her puppies never stood a chance in this cruel, cold world.

Her parents were charred remains of what they once used to be.

Her mother, who would sing her to sleep, telling her about the worms while tucking her in and petting her head. Her father, reading her bedtime stories about wolves that hid in flocks of sheep, and Mary and her lambs, substituting her name in for the lamb. Those were always her favorite stories. The lamb was such a soft, gentle creature, it made her happy to see herself in it. She had always lived up to her last name.

But this… this wasn’t a lamb.

Lambs didn’t hurt people.

No, this couldn’t be Tessa. Tessa didn’t hurt people. She was the kind girl who spent her time looking after animals. She was the girl who resented her parents, but always believed that they had something left in them that cared. She was the girl who believed everyone was redeemable, and her parents would come back around to her one day and they could all be a happy family.

She wasn’t someone who burned down the one house she had lived in her whole life. She wasn’t someone who took delight in hearing her parents screams. She wasn’t someone who trapped the people who brought her into the world in a room to die. She wasn’t…

She wasn’t…

<strike>But she was.</strike>

Tessa fell to her knees.

She watched as the last ashes of her house smoldered. Everything was still so loud, voices ringing in her ears. She couldn’t process any of it, though. It was all white noise, drowned out by the voices in her own head screaming at her.

No, no, no. This wasn’t her.

She couldn’t have done this.

No. No Tessa Lamb wouldn’t do this. She couldn’t have done this.

This was the act of something much deeper, something cruel and uncaring. Something that was brought out because she couldn’t understand her own feelings. Something that had snapped and brought everything tumbling down.

This wasn’t her. No. This was a wolf. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

That’s all it was.

Mary Wolf.

But it was her. And if it was her, then this was still all her fault.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it.

This wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been.

She had been outside the whole time with Maisy, and had run away when she saw the fire, that was all. She had gotten to close and burned her hands, then got out as quickly as she could.

She hadn’t seen anything. She hadn’t done anything. She didn’t want to see her parents suffer, she didn’t want to hear their screams. She just wanted to be a happy family, and this fire had taken it away from her. She was just a poor innocent caught up in this all.

That was all.

That was all.

Mary Wolf closed her eyes.

Tessa Lamb opened them.

**Author's Note:**

> “Hey there little girl. My name is Sam. Sam Baas.”
> 
> The bald man with a sweeping mustache sat down next to her.
> 
> “You’re Tessa, right? It’s nice to meet you. The lady who runs this place says you like animals? I do too.”
> 
> Tessa’s head peaked up.
> 
> “Oh, there’s that cute face.” He flashed her a winning smile. “I knew that’d get you to perk up. I actually have a dog at my home. Her name is Bessie. She’s old, but she’s really sweet. She could use someone to keep her company.”
> 
> Tessa tucked her head back down shyly. She didn’t know if she could stand losing something again.
> 
> “I know you’re scared, but you don’t have to worry about anything, little Ms Lamb. I’m the best police officer out there. I’ll protect your from anything.”
> 
> Tessa nodded.
> 
> “I like your mittens,” Baas pointed out.
> 
> She looked down at the gloves, carefully hiding her mangled hands. They had little wolves stitched into them.
> 
> “Thank you,” she said softly.
> 
> “Would you like to meet Bessie? I can bring her here next time I visit. She’d love to get out of the house some more. My job takes up more time than I’d like. I’m all prepared to take a leave of absence for adoption, though. I’ve always wanted a family. I’m married to the law, but there’s nothing I’ve wanted more than to have a kid. I’d be grateful for a chance.”
> 
> Tessa cracked a small smile. This man seemed so goofy and aloof, but she could tell he cared.
> 
> He was the first person to take an interest in her. Not many people wanted to adopt girl with mangled hands that had a lifetime of trauma stacked on top of her. But maybe… Maybe this was a new beginning.
> 
> Mary Wolf smiled.


End file.
